AUTOS ON MONDAY/Technology; Coming: 95% Recyclable Cars

By JIM MOTAVALLI

Published: September 19, 2005

HOUSEHOLDS across the United States are steadily coming to terms with local laws that require trash to be separated and sorted -- glass bottles divided from aluminum cans, plastic milk jugs isolated from newspapers -- before it is all hauled to the curb to await pickup.

Most of Europe, though, already embraces (or enforces) recycling with true-believer fervor. So many subcategories have been created for the redirection of castoffs that just a relatively small volume of unusable material finds its way to that final resting place once known as the dump.

No wonder, then, European lawmakers are setting limits on the wastefulness in scrapping automobiles, a process that has typically sent 25 percent of each vehicle, by weight, into an ever-shrinking amount of landfill space. On Jan. 1, the next phase of a vehicle recycling mandate set by the European Union, known as the End-of-Life Vehicles Directive, will take effect.

The new regulations will require 85 percent of the car's materials, by weight, to be recovered and reused; the figure includes 5 percent through energy recovery, typically by burning materials that are not economically practical to recycle.

In 2007, networks set up by carmakers in the European Union must be ready to accept all scrap vehicles, regardless of age, at no cost to the car's last owner. In 2015, the portion of each vehicle that should be recycled increases to 95 percent.

Despite the complexity of construction and wide variety of materials in new vehicles, reducing potential waste to just 5 percent can be accomplished without the need for technological breakthroughs. For instance, the 2007 Mercedes-Benz S-Class sedan, which made its debut at the Frankfurt auto show last week, will comply with the 2015 regulation, the company said. The car was designed with recyclability as a goal, with materials selected for ease of processing from the beginning of its development. The new S-Class goes on sale in the United States early next year.

Though more than 10 million vehicles are scrapped each year in this country, sending about four million tons of waste to landfills, laws based on the principle that producers should be responsible for products at the end of their useful lives are given little chance of winning approval here. The situation is different in Europe and Japan, both of which have limited landfill space and strong public support for environmental reforms.

Chris Rogers, head of corporate affairs at Honda Motor Europe, said his company is already making provisions to take back some or all of the 575,000 Hondas expected to be on European roads by 2007. ''We've known about this legislation for a long time,'' he said. ''There are provisions for it in our business plan, and we realize it is part of selling high-quality cars in Europe.''

It is definitely not a cost of doing business in the United States, where such ''extended producer responsibility'' laws are not on the legislative agenda. ''The U.S. has generally failed to match Europe in making producers responsible for their products, in large part because of its zealous overreliance on voluntary, market-based approaches,'' said Charles Griffith, auto project director for the Ecology Center, an environmental advocacy group based in Ann Arbor, Mich.

The new recycling laws affect American carmakers nonetheless. General Motors, for instance, sold 200 Hummers, 575 Corvettes and 1,000 Cadillacs in Europe in the first six months of this year. Kathleen Hamilton, a G.M. spokeswoman, said that global design process which created these vehicles took into account the recycling laws.

A DaimlerChrysler spokesman, Max Gates, said that legal requirements applying to the American-engineered minivans, Jeeps and Chrysler 300's the company sells in Europe will be met using facilities set up by ''our Mercedes partners.''

The provision in the law that requires companies to take back cars is causing anxiety, even though it does not take effect until 2007. ''We are worried, absolutely,'' said Willy Tomboy, environment officer of Toyota Motor Europe. ''We'll do the utmost to conform to the regulations, but we're concerned about potential future costs.''

Reid Lifset, associate director of the Industrial Environmental Management Program at Yale and editor of the Journal of Industrial Ecology, said he believes the extended producer responsibility regulations are most effective when companies have a financial incentive to improve the recyclability of their products. ''Many of the existing E.P.R. laws are not being designed that way, and that bothers me,'' he said.

As newer cars with components like air bags, seatbelt pretensioners, navigation screens and high-intensity headlights (all of which contain potentially harmful chemicals), begin to enter the waste stream, recycling costs could rise drastically. Jeff Kantor, chairman of the air bag task force of the Automotive Recyclers Association, estimates the cost of dismantling a vehicle with six to eight air bags and a navigation screen at $500. Of course, dismantlers will be able to offset the cost by selling some of these components.

The Japanese law, parts of which took effect this year, has similarities to its European counterpart. Though it does not include the manufacturer take-back provisions enacted in Europe, it does require carmakers doing business in Japan to increase the recyclability level to 95 percent, from today's 80 percent, by 2015. It also requires companies to collect and recycle air bags, air-conditioning refrigerants and leftovers known as automotive shredder residue. The residue makes up 25 percent vehicle's weight, according to Automotive Industry Trends, a trade newsletter.

According to a report by the Development Bank of Japan, high prices for disposing of the shredder residue domestically (and the lack of new disposal facilities) gives companies a significant incentive to recycle the material. Japanese automakers have formed two alliances to recycle as much as 45 percent of the material.

Japanese carmakers are also making progress in recycling parts once considered nonrecoverable. Nissan has made structural changes to its cars that make wiring harnesses easier to remove, increasing their recovery rate to 85 percent, from 50 percent, according to a company report.

Laws like the European directive are often called ''unfunded mandates'' in legislative circles, effectively raising the question of how they will be paid for. The Japanese statute includes a fund that owners contribute to when they buy a new car or register an older one. The range of fees stretches from about $63 to $164, with the lowest amount for recycling-friendly models. The measure is intended to encourage carmakers to design vehicles more easily recycled at the end of their useful lives.

Kunihiko Shiohara, an auto analyst at Goldman Sachs based in Japan, said the fees paid by drivers will give automakers a relatively soft landing. ''As some of the cost will be charged to consumers at the time of new vehicle sales,'' he said, ''it will not be entirely borne by automakers, and so should not depress profit margins significantly.''

Mr. Shiohara adds, however, that carmakers are spending heavily to develop advanced recycling technologies, costs not subsidized by the fund. ''As a cost borne entirely by automakers, it will be added to vehicle costs,'' he said.